Challenge

Celsys develops products and services that support the creative activities of a wide range of artists and creators. The company’s core application is Clip Studio Paint, which supports the creation of illustrations, manga, webtoons, and animations. Since its launch in 2012, more than 45 million users have used the application—making it a valued tool for creators in countries around the world. As the company expanded its reach and supported multiple languages, it faced significant obstacles with its previous payment service, particularly concerning overseas transactions.

“There were many barriers for foreign customers trying to purchase the one-time payment version of our application,” said Naotaka Otsuka, executive officer at Celsys.

Frequent service outages coincided with sales periods, resulting in lost revenue opportunities. Additionally, the dashboard and support were only available in English, making the system difficult to use, and the support provided was inadequate.

Compounding these issues was the limited range of supported currencies. Notably, there was no support for the Korean won—despite a substantial user base in Korea—and no plans to include the Indonesian rupiah, despite added language support for Indonesia. With these challenges in mind, Celsys began seeking a new payment solution, considering Stripe among its options.

In 2022, Celsys selected Stripe to address these challenges. With the support of 12 international currencies and Payment Links for its international customers to use the one-time payment version of its application, this change enabled stable service operation without bugs. Payment Links also reduced daily fraudulent chargebacks by approximately 75%, substantially enhancing its payment environment.

“The stability of the service is marvelous,” said Otsuka. “It’s also highly secure and has a reasonable fee structure. It was basically the only rational choice.”

Solution

Celsys began by integrating Stripe Elements with its existing internal payments platform for its Japanese customers. However, frequent changes to pricing and specifications of its subscription service proved cumbersome, prompting Celsys to also implement Stripe Billing—a comprehensive tool designed for managing subscriptions such as recurring payments and ongoing purchases.

“Stripe Billing also includes support for nonpayments and an automatic smart retry function for failed payments,” said Otsuka. “It encompasses all the essential features for a subscription service, such as temporary contract suspension, while enhancing customer experience through ease of use, which convinced us to migrate.”

To facilitate the transition to Stripe Billing, Celsys used Stripe’s paid support service. This provided Celsys with a development guide that highlighted key implementation points and valuable insights, which meaningfully accelerated its implementation timeline.

“Development progressed smoothly because we could consult with Stripe’s experienced engineers, allowing us to maintain the unique requirements of our existing platform while aligning with the robust capabilities of Stripe Billing,” said Otsuka. Celsys also worked with Stripe on migrating 200,000 existing contracts, leading to the development of a phased migration plan and the seamless transfer of data through APIs.

Results

Celsys has achieved remarkable results, encountering zero errors since implementing Stripe in 2022, which has enhanced its operational efficiency. The user-friendly Dashboard and support features, now available in Japanese, have also improved usability.

“The searchability of the Dashboard is particularly useful,” said Otsuka. When handling user inquiries, support staff can easily locate relevant data using known information—such as the user’s email address and contract number—which has simplified customer support processes.

Necessary system revisions that accompany price changes or other adjustments can now be completed with far less effort, reducing the cost of responding to all types of issues. Celsys is now looking to implement marketing campaigns that take advantage of other Stripe Billing features, such as coupons and referral bonuses.

Celsys has also streamlined system revisions, allowing price changes and adjustments to be completed with minimal effort, thereby reducing operational costs. To foster future growth, Celsys plans to launch marketing campaigns using additional features from Stripe Billing, such as coupons and referral bonuses.

Otsuka also highlighted the benefit of Stripe’s wide-ranging capabilities: “Primary payment methods vary by country, and addressing these differences has been a major challenge. With Stripe, we can leverage numerous payment methods to reach a broad customer base, including younger users."